NICARAGUANS TO GET WORK PERMITS

WASHINGTON -- Nicaraguans currently living in the United States who do not have a criminal record and do not "pose a danger to national security" will be allowed to remain in this country and will be granted work permits, the Reagan administration announced on Wednesday.

In Miami, Nicaraguan community leaders reacted with joy and pledges of continued activism on behalf of exiles and their counterparts still in their troubled country.

"This is a day of jubilance," said Silvio Arguello, vice president of the Nicaraguan Assistance Center near Miami's Little Havana.

Attorney General Edwin Meese III, in a statement issued by the Justice Department, said he had signed an order directing the Immigration and Naturalization Service to encourage Nicaraguans who meet the required stipulations to apply for work permits. INS also has been ordered to speed up the processing of the work permits, according to the Justice Department statement.

"Every qualified Nicaraguan seeking a work authorization will be entitled to one," the statement said.

The moves by the attorney general had been rumored for several weeks and are being made to "ensure that individuals with a well-founded fear of persecution" from the Sandinista government in Nicaragua be allowed to remain in this country and work to support themselves, Meese said in the statement.

An estimated 200,000 Nicaraguan exiles now residing in the United States will be relieved of the fear of deportation, the attorney general said, unless they have "engaged in serious criminal activity" or represent a national security risk. INS officials calculate that 60,000 of these exiles currently live in South Florida, and a small number of them had been scheduled for immediate deportation before Meese signed the order.

The Justice Department statement said those exiles previously denied stays of deportation and those whose claims for asylum have been rejected now will be encouraged to apply for a rehearing of their cases in light of a March Supreme Court decision setting new standards for granting asylum.

Meese's order also directs INS officials to "encourage and educate Nicaraguans who may be eligible" to apply for legal residence in the United States.

Cristobal Mendoza, organizer of a 100-member group of children who lobbied in Washington a week ago to draw attention to their families' plight, said Nicaraguans in South Florida "will sleep better."

Leaders had lobbied in Washington for seven years, he said, but "it was the children that opened the hearts and spoke to the sentiments of the administration."

They met with Vice President George Bush's staff only a few days after Bush visited Miami to name a Little Havana street Ronald Reagan Avenue.

Perry Rivkind, INS district director in Miami, also credited Bush with prodding the bureaucracy to refine its policies regarding the Nicaraguans. He gave Bush's staff a briefing about the Nicaraguans' asylum claims during the Miami visit.

Rivkind praised the new policy, calling it humanitarian. "It took a long time, but it is a happy ending for the Nicaraguan community and for the United States and its foreign policy," Rivkind said.

The wheels of bureaucracy are still turning slowly, however.

The new policy has been announced, but immigration offices have not received guidelines for processing the renewed asylum claims, he said. He will need additional staff to handle the expected wave of applications.

He recommended that refugees wait for an announcement telling them when the processing will begin. "If they rush down here, there is nothing we can do yet," he said.

Ana Abaunza, spokeswoman for a social club that raises money for rent, food and clothes for the refugees, said a wait of a few more days is not hard for people who have waited seven years.

"Nobody had any money," she said. "Now they can get jobs, they can buy food, they can buy clothes. They don't have to be living in cars and under the freeway and 25 people in one home," she said.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., hailed the administration's actions during a news conference after the announcement.

"I am pleased that the administration will allow Nicaraguans in our community to support themselves," Graham said. "This decision is practical, humanitarian and in the best interest of South Florida."

Graham, who had lobbied Bush and White House officials in recent weeks for work permits for Nicaraguan exiles, told reporters that the current situation in Nicaragua "represents a dilemma for America."

"We want strong enforcement of immigration laws, but we also have to face reality," the freshman senator said. "We're not going to deport them back to a communist government."